Biotypes of Candida albicans isolates from Aids patients

RESUMO

The phenotypic features of C. albicans oral isolates recovered from AIDS patients were determined by serotyping, morphotyping and byotyping in nine media with different biochemical characteristics. The patients were divided into Group I, comprising subjects with detectable lesions of the oral mucosa and Group 2, corresponding to carrier patients. Despite observing a greater frequency of serotype B isolates among subjects with symptomatic oral candidosis as compared to the other group of patients, these results were not statistically significant. When correlating the presence of serotypes A and B with T lymphocyte counts, we verified the occurrence of serotype B was more prevalent (p<0.05) than serotype A in individuals with CD4+ T < 200 cells/mm³. The occurrence of fringes greater than 3 mm in lenght was a typical feature of the oral isolates from our AIDS patients, though no differences in this respect were detected between the two groups of subjects. A lack of ability to assimilate urea and sorbose and variation in sensibility to 5-fluorocytosine were also features expressed by the majority of the isolates, with a predominance of the biotype 347 in 51,9 percent of all the oral isolates studied.